SUNSHINE LAND by Edith Thomas

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Aug 21, 1900

SUNSHINE LAND.

By Edith Thomas

They came in sight of a lovely shore, Yellow as gold in the morning light; The sun's own color at noon it wore, And had faded not at the fall of night; Clear weather or cloudy,—'t was all as one,— The happy hills seemed bathed with the sun; Its secret the sailors could not understand, But they called the country Sunshine Land.

What was the secret? A simple thing— It will make you smile when once you know. Touched by the tender finger of spring, A million blossoms were all aglow; So many, so many, so small and bright, They covered the hills with a mantle of light; And the wild bee hummed, and the glad breeze fanned, Through the honeyed fields of Sunshine Land.

If over the sea we two were bound, What port, dear child, would we choose for ours? We would sail and sail till at last we found This fairy gold of a million flowers. Yet, darling, we'd find, if at home we stayed, Of many and small joys our pleasures are made, More near than we think—very close at hand— Lie the golden fields of Sunshine Land.

— Edith Thomas, in New York Weekly.